A meeting of G7 energy ministers in Rome has ended without nations releasing a joint statement on energy and climate, because the US asked for more time to work out its policies on climate change. All countries except the US want to reaffirm the group’s commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement, adopted by virtually every country in December 2015, the Financial Times reports. The US wanted to include references to coal and fossil fuels in the statement, but this was opposed by the EU and other countries, one official told the Financial Times. “It was a very constructive debate with the US; there was no friction…We respect the fact that the US is re-analysing its position”, said Carlo Calenda, Italy’s economic development minister. Segolene Royal, the French representative at the meeting, said that US energy secretary Rick Perry has not signalled that the US will be backpedalling on climate commitments, Reuters reports. The Hill, Reuters, Climate Home and Bloomberg also have the story.

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell bought a $1.3bn Nigerian oilfield knowing that the proceeds were destined for political figures, including a convicted money launderer, rather than the government, the Times reports. An intercepted phone call between Shell’s chief executive Ben van Beurden, and chief financial officer Simon Henry has also emerged, van Beurden acknowledged Shell’s own investigation uncovered “unhelpful” and “stupid” email exchanges among former UK intelligence agents hired by the company. Anti-corruption campaigners have “seized on the case as an example of how Nigerian rulers have allegedly conspired with multinational companies to plunder the country’s oil riches at the expense of ordinary citizens”, the Financial Times writes.

Two-thirds of Australia’s Great Barrier reef has been devastated by back-to-back years of “severe” coral bleaching, raising concerns that it may not be able to recover, NBC reports, continuing coverage of the event. Aerial surveys by the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies show that 900 miles of the 1,400-mile-long reef have been severely bleached in the past two years. The latest damage is concentrated in the middle section, whereas last year’s bleaching occurred primarily in the north. “The bleaching is caused by record-breaking temperatures driven by global warming”, researcher Terry Hughes told the Mail Online. “Ultimately, we need to cut carbon emissions, and the window to do so is rapidly closing”, he continued. High water temperatures cause coral to expel their algae, making them lose their colour and increasing their chances of dying. The CNN, Daily Express, CNBC, the BBC and Grist also have the story.

Christiana Figueres, the former head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, launched her Mission 2020 campaign yesterday – a new programme designed to encourage urgent action on emissions over the next three years. Although global emissions have remained flat for the last three years – despite economic growth – scientists agree the world must start bending the emissions curve downward in order to hold global temperatures stable, BusinessGreen writes.

The UK generated more electricity from wind turbines in the first three months of this years than ever before, due to “exceptionally windy” weather, the Times reports. More than 11.3 terawatt-hours of electricity were produced in the first quarter, accounting for an estimated 14% of the energy mix, according to Enappsys.

Climate-change scientists are to travel to the Himalayas in an attempt to become the first team to successfully drill through the world’s highest glacier, the BBC reports. The group from Aberystwyth University will use a drill adapted from a car wash to cut into the Khumbu glacier, working at an altitude of 5,000m in the foothills of Everest. They hope to be able to study the internal structure of the glacier to find out how climate change is affecting it. But the trip present a particular challenge, says project leader Prof Bryn Hubbard: “We don’t know how well our equipment will perform at altitude, let alone how we will be able to contend with the thin air”.

Former leader of the UK Conservative party Michael Howard has said that the UK’s success at decarbonising while growing the economy shows that climate sceptic “doom-mongers” were wrong, the Independent reports. “Sir John Major and I were firmly of the view that reducing Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions would not harm our economy. This analysis shows that we were right and the doom-mongers wrong”, he said. A report by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unithighlights that the UK’s emissions fell by 33% between 1992-2014, while GDP grew by 130%.

Trump’s budget blueprint released last month suggests that the administration intends to clamp down on NASA’s study of Earth rather than space. A feature in the New York Times explores how this might affect climate science and scientists – particularly the costly earth science missions. “We have learned an amazing amount about our atmosphere from [Calipso and Cloudsat],” atmospheric scientist Dr Thomas Ackerman tells the paper, “It’s a tragedy that these records will not be continued.”

Any new trade deal that features ‘less climate concern’ will simply allow polluting foreign companies to undercut greener UK rivals, argues James Murray. Environmental protection and economic success are mutually reinforcing, he says, rather than mutually exclusive, as some leaked civil service documents appear to suggest – a view that was then echoed in the Sunday Times. “The UK’s new approach, as interpreted by The Sunday Times, would pave the way for foreign companies to harm the environment and deliver dirty products that undercut those UK firms that remain committed to building a sustainable global economy. Everyone would suffer”, Murray concludes.

A new study presents the results of public surveys into attitudes towards fracking in the US (Los Angeles and Santa Barbara) and UK (London and Cardiff), focusing on places where fracking isn’t already underway. The researchers find that the participants in both the US and UK tend to focus on the risks, rather than the benefits. This is, in part, because the benefits are presented by those perceived as having a vested interest in fracking going ahead, the study finds.

Methane emissions from tropical wetlands during the strong La Niña of 2011 were at least by 5% larger than the long-term average, a new study says. The second half of 2010 and the first half of 2011 experienced the strongest La Niña since the early 1980s. Heavy rainfall over tropical continents caused an expansion of wetlands, the study finds, which resulted in the increase in methane emissions.

Erosion of soil through farming has offset around a third of historical carbon emissions from land use change, a new study suggests. While human activities have substantially increased soil carbon losses since the advent of agriculture, the study finds that this carbon is transported elsewhere and often deposited in a more stable environment. Given that estimates of land use emissions are the most uncertain part of the carbon budget, the erosion and subsequent burial of soil carbon is a necessary addition, the researchers conclude.